Jul. 8, 2013

Josh Smith and Stephen Weiss. / Free Press news service photos

Written by

Jamie Samuelsen

Detroit Free Press Special Writer

Jamie Samuelsen, co-host of the “Jamie and Wojo” show at 6 p.m. weekdays on WXYT-FM (97.1), blogs for freep.com. His opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the Detroit Free Press nor its writers. You can reach him at jamsam22@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter @jamiesamuelsen and read more of his opinions at freep.com/jamie.

Which team made the better move(s): The Detroit Pistons agreeing to a deal with Josh Smith, or the Detroit Red Wings acquiring Daniel Alfredsson and Stephen Weiss?

For years we’ve been told that no NBA free agent will want to sign with the Pistons. And for the last year, we’ve been told that no NHL free agent will want to sign with the Red Wings.

Apparently both of those statements need a second look.

The Red Wings and the Pistons barged headlong into the free agent market with bold moves over the weekend. Detroit clearly took the NHL by storm, so much so that by last Friday afternoon, they were being called one of the favorites to win the Eastern Conference next season.

The Pistons didn’t do quite the same in the NBA thanks in large part to the Dwight Howard soap opera. But once you get past the top five teams in the Eastern Conference, there’s a pretty wide opening for the rest of the teams to sneak into the final three playoff slots. The Pistons are one of those teams already. Does Josh Smith, who will sign for four years and $54 million, give them a free pass into the postseason? Well, let’s hold of for a second.

In terms of winners, the Wings are the clear winners here. As the season and the playoffs grinded along, it was obvious that the Wings were better on defense than we originally thought. And it was just as obvious that they struggled to score goals. Detroit scored just five goals in the last three games of the second-round playoff loss to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Blackhawks. Another goal anywhere along the way, particularly in the Game 6 loss at Joe Louis Arena, and hockey history would look a lot different.

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So on Day 1, GM Ken Holland addressed that need by signing Daniel Alfredsson and Stephen Weiss. The Weiss signing is a gem. He averaged nearly 60 points in the past four full seasons playing for a lousy team in the Florida Panthers. Imagine him on the ice with the likes of Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Johan Franzen and Gustav Nyquist going forward and the Red Wings offense should pick up the pace dramatically.

And with strong players coming up through the system from Grand Rapids, Holland now has some trade chips to work with to acquire depth on defense and perhaps another NHL-level goal scorer.

But more than the actual moves, I think the first day of free agency kind of re-established the Red Wings as a player on the league-wide level. Last summer was a disappointment in every way. The Wings missed out on their targeted players, and they ended up settling for players who had little to no effect on the team this season. Was Detroit still a draw? Did the appeal of an Original Six team no longer carry the weight that it used to? Were players scared off at the notion of playing for a disciplinarian like coach Mike Babcock?

Who knows which of those factors are true and which aren’t? The bottom line is that Alfredsson, one of the most respected players in the game, said he wanted to play for Detroit because he felt they gave him a chance to win a Stanley Cup. Some Red Wings fans view this as a team in transition. I know I do. But some of the powers in the game still view them as the same old Red Wings. Perhaps that transition was faster than anybody imagined.

As for the Pistons, I wrote last week that the prospect of signing Smith didn’t exactly thrill me. Nothing changed today. Smith has never been an All-Star. He’s been more successful at power forward than at small forward, where the Pistons say they plan on playing him alongside Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond. And he’s got a reputation of being a difficult player to coach, which is simply music to Pistons’ fans’ ears.

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The interesting thing is what this means for Monroe. If the presence of Smith now means president of basketball operations Joe Dumars is able to deal Monroe (Rajon Rondo?), then we might have something. If this means the plan is for the big three to team up on the front line, I don’t see how this makes the Pistons appreciably better. They still don’t have a true point guard despite Brandon Knight’s desire to take over the role. And their perimeter shooting seems limited to rookie Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Kyle Singler and Rodney Stuckey.

In other words, Smith helps. But he creates almost as many questions as he answers.

Holland has the pressure of getting back to Cup contention in the shortest amount of time possible. Dumars has the pressure of turning things around in this, the final season of his contract. Neither accomplished their goals in the first days of free agency. But both may have positioned themselves to make moves to get them closer to where they need to be. Holland just happens to be a little closer thanks to his first moves. Dumars can get closer if Day 1 leads to more.